


End of a Long While

by Elfwreck



Category: Glitch (Video Game), Road Not Taken (Video Game)
Genre: Gift Fic, Immortality, Lost children, Multi, Polyamory, Queer Character, Rescue Missions, Romance, Shrine offerings, Winter, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The berry supply is drying up, and the ranger sent to reestablish it gets caught up in village life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of a Long While

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellen_fremedon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellen_fremedon/gifts).



> Beta by TheDukeofAvon, who helped wrangle this into a much better story than it was originally.
> 
> Ellen, I had your dear author letter in an open tab, trying to figure out how I'd write something for it in addition to whatever I got assigned. And then it got assigned to me, and I thought, YAY! I shall write ALL THE FIC! Followed by EEEP! ... Now it has to be good because it might be the only one she gets! I hope you like reading this as much as I liked coming up with the story, and thank you so much for the opportunity to tie these two games together. (And I really, really hope someone else wrote you the feltlining fic, because that sounds awesome but was outside of my range.)

The villagers that live in the remote southern woodlands where the berries thrive know nothing of the Elixir of Life. They know they live long, healthy lives, and that the bustling cities far away pay very well for their only export. I suppose they think the cities are full of pie contests.

There are no pie contests this year, nor the year before that. When the berry harvest is plentiful, the ones that aren't large enough or blue enough are made into fine brandy and tiny bottles of preserves. When the harvest is scant, as it's been for over a decade now--all the berries go to Elixir. The high council seeks rangers willing visit the remote villages and make sure their harvests are safely gathered and delivered, and some of us are bored enough to answer the call.

I must be bored. It's been decades since I spoke to more than two people in a single day, and they want me to be social with a whole village, one so remote that rangers don't even visit it.

I have had a long, rich life; I can't even remember most of it. I have seen rainbows over gardens and shrines in deep forests; I have skated across frozen lakes and leapt around on mountain cliffs; I have fought rooks and rescued lost piglets. Everyone I once knew is either long dead, or so remote I cannot contact them. It is time for something new, even if that something cuts my remaining years down to a handful. I will go to the village and help with their berry harvests.

***

The captain is a gruff man who seems to be about half beard. I ask him where the village is, the one he's taking me to.

"Oh, you won't have heard of it. It's in the Levenfox region, off Causura Bay. We'll dock at Ello Ello Port, and I'll give you a map."

He's right. I haven't heard of it. But it's been so long since I left the firebogs; I suppose the names of places have changed. Causura Bay sounds familiar, but it's not on my map.

"I have maps," I tell him. I do. They're ancient, but mountains and coastlines don't move much, even if the forest paths have probably all changed.

"Eh? Lemme see," he says, and I show him. 

He scratches his head. "I don't know as those'll help much. The coastlines look about right, but I don't recognize any of the places on them, 'lessen that's Jethi Tower. But we've left Kalose Port, and those mainland spots you've got are all gone. 'Cept the blight lands, of course. Those don't change. But I don't see the point of having maps of 'em. Can't visit the insides."

They weren't called "the blight lands" the last time I walked them, although we couldn't stay long in them, even then. I suppose they're even brighter now, and the Jujus fierce enough to drive out the few explorers who wander into them. I nod politely, and put away my maps. 

He talks about the village--the mayor's simple avarice, the poor but devoted family life of the residents. He knows a lot about them; I don't ask if he's from there. I'm not used to having information given to me.

We arrive at Ello Ello in the morning, and he seems happy to send me off. I can't tell if that's because he hopes I can help the village, or because I am such poor company he's glad to be rid of me. I hold my staff and wrap my ranger's robe around me before stepping into the town square.

So many people. So many, many people. I know all villages are like this, and cities are even busier… but it's been a very, very long time since I spent my evenings among the crowds at the Junction. I don't know if it's even around anymore; the subways are long-abandoned and strange things crawl through them now, and I haven't left the firebogs in longer than any of these people have been alive.

Many people shake my hand. Some children ask about my staff, and I bend down to show them the glowing crystal that gives me the power to throw trees and boulders. I try smiling, but they do not smile back. Perhaps I'm not doing it right.

I try to pay attention so I can remember them. I meet an archer who might be a ranger's apprentice, if she wanted to explore--but she is content to stay here, or near here; she has no hunger for the mountains of Aranna nor the spice trees of Ix. She loves the berries; their juice has stained the handle of her bow. 

Next is a bookish fellow who wishes to be sophisticated and erudite; I do not tell him how very provincial he would seem in the big cities. He collects coins, thinking he will someday buy passage to "the ancient Seeking Hawk tower." I do not tell him that Hauki Seeks was abandoned long before I first visited it, and it must have crumbled to dust by now. He plans to become a writer and a historian, so he reads history books, and while the names have changed, shifted with time, I recognize many of the stories. I find that I enjoy hearing about my own past this way, so different and yet familiar.

I meet a singer who has never imagined life outside the village. He avoids the forest and its dangers; he has sung at too many funerals to think the woods are fun. He's a sly one--hunger has made him sneaky--but I cannot begrudge him his tiny thefts of rice.

The flower girl, I expected not to like me at all--she is full of wedding plans and a love of soft, cuddly pets. (I have never kept cuddly pets. I had some pigs, once, and some chickens, but the flower girl scrunches up her nose at the thought of those as "pets." She also says butterflies aren't real pets because you can't, well, _pet_ them.) But she welcomes me, more enthusiastically than most; she is, it seems, a truly generous soul. I call her a Friend and she smiles at me, and says, "and someday you will be my friend!"

Oh. I didn't mean… 

They are all so thin. They talk so fast. They have given me their names but I have forgotten already; I so rarely have to speak to people long enough to need names for them. I go find the mayor again, and tap my staff on the ground to get his attention.

"A refugee, eh?" The mayor seems unclear on my purpose here. Or perhaps he's never heard of rangers, and is trying to put me in a niche he understands. "If you work, we'll feed you. If not... times are tough."

I can feed myself, I do not say. He misunderstands my skeptical look.

"Too bad life is never simple, eh?"

I sigh, and go to the edge of the town, where a fellow in green is at the gate, looking for the berry parties to come back. He says, "An early storm has stranded children in west valley," and looks at me expectantly.

I tell him I'll save the kids, and head off into the woods.

***

The mayor stands just outside the gate to the village, telling me I must rescue five children before I am welcome back inside. A distraught parent wrings her hands and begs me to bring the children back to her. I ignore them; I have nothing meaningful to say to either of them.

The edge of the forest has a large blue stone, not as pale as beryl. Over the years, it seems more blue element has leeched into the stones. I pick it up and toss it; when it lands, it changes to red! I wonder if it contains the same elemental balance no matter which color it is… but I was never much of an alchemist and my grinder is long gone. The inner makings of stones are beyond me now. I walk on.

The first clearing I reach has a couple of deer moving through the trees, a child curled up against the cold, and a handful of spirits--they seem docile enough right now, but I must be careful; they can become angry in groups. A woman is also here, looking for the child, but she cannot find the pathways between the trees as I can. Perhaps she fears the spirits. I go to the child, moving around the spirits; the deer watch me warily. I carry the child a short distance--she is so heavy!--and then push her at the woman, who eagerly welcomes her; they run off back to the village.

I go deeper into the forest. 

I find the children lost by the storm. I get slammed by an angry raccoon; I nudge some spirits into taking the shape of an axe, and cut down some trees, and start a fire; I push one of the children at the fire until she is warm enough to follow me back to the parent waiting near the mayor. I chase some deer until they stand close enough that the forest spirits can see the herd, and lower a wall for me. I throw my axe at a bear, frightening him away; he drops an apple before he escapes to the darker parts of the forest. I catch a rabbit; I nudge one of the parents closer to the lost children, and she is so happy that she drops her pouch of berries as she runs.

I carefully lift one of the spirits away from a child, and it gives me some rice. Perhaps I can teach the singer how to make Tasty Pasta from it; he seems like someone who would enjoy a rich sauce over noodles.

I find a huntress in the forest; she doesn't live in the village and has no children. She seems happy to talk for a while. Her name is short and forgettable, and I have forgotten it already.

I meet a woodsman as well; I do not manage to learn if he lives in the village and comes out here to find trees, or if he lives here and goes to the village to sell the wood he cuts. He, too, is glad for company that is not searching for berries; he does not know where the berries are. They are too small for him to notice.

Although the storm has not entirely passed, I find all the children and bring them home. I am so tired. The mayor, overcome with largesse, hands me what he believes is a fat stack of coins, but I remember leaping for treasure across the cliffs of Madhur Hathur. I do not tell him how paltry his payment looks in comparison. That was a long while ago, and many things have changed since the giants awoke and left us; perhaps this handful of coins is now considered great wealth.

I nod my farewells to the village and go back to the woods by the coast. I spend weeks communing with memories or ghosts--I have long since lost the capacity or interest to tell the difference. Summer comes, and I gather fruit to eat; I consider hunting, but I am not sure how much of the village's meager supplies are from hunting, and I would rather not encroach. Autumn wends its way through the hills, and I sit on a long-abandoned bench and watch dragonflies. Winter drifts in, and I find myself drifting back to town.

The mayor is pleased to see me. All year, they have been waiting for me. They have built me a house, he says proudly. He gives me a key, with much posturing and declarations of my value to the community.

I notice that it is at the very edge of town, close to the woods. That none of my neighbors will speak to me. I say nothing.

I am glad, for the first time in many many years, to see people again. The singing-yodeling boy, he is very happy for the rice, and for the chance to learn a new recipe. (Time was, that recipe was taught to everyglitch. These people are so different… I do not even know if they are glitchen.) He grins wickedly at thought of eating the rice he's supposed to use to pay taxes, and I wink at him.

The archer-girl slowly chews the berries I give her, and her eyes get wider and wider. She tells me some secrets--she has not traveled, but she has learned the lore of _this_ forest. The wolves, she tells me, are just foxes in disguise. And the raccoons can be made into soup. I thank her; I have never had raccoon soup. I will remember her when I try it.

The scholar seems to want money, so I give him some. I press the copper into his palms and whisper mischievously, heads or tails? We lose some coins throwing them at tiny rooks. (He does not call them rooks.) He grins, "So worth it." I am delighted to have taught him to enjoy the shine and flicker of money as well as its potential for trade.

The friendly flower-girl makes a high-pitched, delighted squealing sound at the rabbit I give her. She blushes as she hints at what rabbits are known for, and asks me, "Do you like families?" Her eyes go really wide when I answer.

It quickly becomes too much, all these people smiling and talking at me. I head back to my house; I am almost at the door when I realize there is a fellow standing by the gates, looking out to the woods. Curious, I go over to him.

"I told them not to head into the woods. Now they are all doomed!" 

I sigh, and head into the woods again. It's colder out here than in town; I hug my cloak tightly around me as I look through the trees and avoid trampling the gentle spirits. On my way, I nudge one of the stones. It speaks!

"Before the forests grew, these stones dulled your ancestors plows," it tells me. I try to reply to it, but it does not hear me. It reminds me of the near-forgotten patch, all those years ago, who worried that it would not be remembered. I have lost much of my past, but I remember it, sitting alone near the frozen Vantalu woodlands. It was waiting to be ploughed, and now I am talking to a stone that takes pride in its un-ploughable state. I pat the rock gently before moving on.

I find two children curled close together as a blizzard starts raging around us. I find one of the parents wandering through the woods, and push her until she can see the children; she wraps her arms around both of them and rushes off to safety. Good. Fewer for me to carry out. 

I find the huntress again, and a shrine nearby, and I peer into it. It wants an offering of coin, rice, or berries--the things it recognizes. It will not take live meat. Any symbols on the outside have long ago worn away.

I ask the huntress whose shrine it is.

"Well, nobody's, I suppose. The mayor might claim it's his, but out here so far in the woods, how could he own it?"

No, I say. Who… who _receives_ what is offered to it? Which giant? 

"Giant?" she asks, puzzled. "These woods have no shrines for giants. A giant could barely use it for a thimble." 

And then I know the giants have truly been forgotten. I give her my rabbit, and she is delighted; I try to share in her joy. In return, she gives me a fine mug that will keep me warm as I wander through the woods, and I thank her. 

I return to the shrine. I am not sure which giant watches over lost children--Humbaba, who loves all creatures on two legs or four? Lem, who guides wanderers? Friendly, who encourages a playful spirit in any form? Spriggan, whose woods these must be, despite having no idol in the village? 

I finally decide to make an offering to Mab, if the shrine will accept it. I place some rice in the stone bowl and make a brief prayer that the harvest will go well, and those who harvest will return home safe to enjoy it. It glows, and my rice disappears, so the offering was accepted. I will hope that my prayer is answered as well.

I keep traveling through the forest, reuniting parents with children where I can. I build a fire that I know will not last, but for a short while, deer and butterflies frolic in a hidden glade among the icy trees, and it is easy to move the boulders away to reach the children behind them. One child I lead out myself, pushing her past some wolves (who are indeed foxes in disguise, but removing their disguises is rather tricky) and stacking some of the talking stones to arrange safe passage. She runs to the waiting arms of the woman in the clearing where the mayor is.

The parents barely have time to speak to me, once my task is done. They are delighted with the return of their children, and when I do not openly share their joy, they look at me sadly. "You wouldn't understand. You're not a parent." 

That I am not, nor will I be. I try to avoid obligations I do not have the skills to fulfil. I am trying not to think harshly of these parents, who send their children out alone with no way to retrieve them should they become lost. 

The mayor is an ass. He pays me in rice, and makes sure all the villagers know it is he who invited me here. I cannot speak to him anymore.

When I return to the village, I meet my charming singer-lad again. I give him rice--he is always hungry!--and he says, "My grandmother gives rice in offerings to the forest spirits. Are you religious too?" I smile. Perhaps the old ways are not as lost as I thought. I tell him the story of the Greedy Street Spirit who stole the stars from the sky, and lost them again, and found friends instead. 

He asks me if that really happened or if it is just a story. I ask him why it can't be both. 

Later, I talk to the archer-girl. She is wary of strangers, and that still includes me… mostly. But she is not unhappy to see me. "You keep coming back. It would be nice, just once, to have a real friend." Her eyes go cloudy and she stops speaking for a moment. "I've let myself hope before." I tell her I will reside here, in the village, for the rest of my life. 

She knows--they all do--how short a time that is; I've had no Elixir for several years now, and my hair is starting to grey. I don't care. I like it here, with all these vibrant, busy, so-very-different people. I decide to enjoy what I can of my last years.

I look through my pockets for some coins I'd found in the woods, and go looking for my writer friend. (I suppose he is not "mine," really. But I think of them as mine, as if they did not exist before I arrived in the village. A fine bit of ego that is, but I have so little time; I can forgive myself a bit of arrogance.) I give him the coins, because he is the one who likes them most, and he gives me a hug. 

"It isn't my birthday, but I'm not one to turn down gifts!" He and I are now good friends, he tells me, and I smile at him.

It has been a long time since I had friends. I tell him this, and he insists on leading me around the village and making sure I talk to everyone, even the doctor. The oddly dressed woman fiddles with her mask, and tells me, "I sell medicine that delays incurable diseases." I ask if any of her medicines are based on the winter berries, and she says no--she does not make Elixir. I hadn't thought of it that way--as a medicine that delays the disease of old age--but I suppose that's true enough.

I don't know what (other) diseases occur in this part of the world, and the Elixir has made me immune to most so I have never studied them. I am glad there is someone in the village who knows how to treat them.

***

The bustling village life exhausts me, and I am almost glad for the unseasonable snowfall that traps a berry party. I eagerly volunteer to go find them. 

Some new seeds must've blown into the valley last summer; some of the bushes have sharp thorns. I don't know how the children managed to get themselves behind them--perhaps they were following the rabbits who dug underneath them--but it is painful moving through the branches to get the children out. 

Wisps have appeared, perhaps summoned by my activation of the long-abandoned shrine. I recognize their ghostly forms… but they are hungry for life, hungry for touch, and they will steal the children away to their shadow-realms if I am not careful. I am very, very careful around the wisps.

One part of the woods is crawling with spiders, huge beasts that can wrap a child up whole. I rescue one child, but lose one to the webs. I don't even know his name.

Eventually, I return to the mayor. I have saved most of the lost children, but one will never return. I tell him I can do no more. "Every year, we lose some," he says. "It's okay. We'll make more." He pays me anyway.

Next autumn, he arranges a small presentation--he gives me a watch, in recognition of my great value to the community. I remove my robe to pin it to my shirt, and my new friends admire it.

Some of them become more than friends. I share sweet rice cakes with the singer, and he shares kisses with me at the edge of the bandstand. I bring berries to the archer, and she strokes my silvering hair with hands that tremble. I buy books for the would-be writer, and he asks me about my history--and my future. I cherish each of them for who they are, for what is precious and important to them.

The girl who sells flowers is unhappy with me. "I thought our friendship was important to you," she tells me. "But every time I turn around, you're whispering something to _him_." She means my writer friend. "I don't trust him... I've never trusted him. I'm having a hard time trusting you, too." 

With regret, I allow her to keep her distance. I have not time to woo everyone, and I would like some joys in my short remaining life, to counter the darkness and cold of my time in the forest. 

I find the spell that will let me protect these woods from rooks (they do not call them rooks here, but I recognize them anyway) and the wisps that steal children away. I gird myself with the mug of warm drink, and a fine pair of socks that keep me warm enough to find lost children quickly. I learn the ways of _this_ forest--how the spirits can be guided into bottles at the stone mortars to become potions; how to cut grassy logs into firewood; how to trap a rabbit between stones. 

I try to rescue all the lost children each year, but I cannot. Especially as I grow older, the woods seem to become colder; the paths are less clear; the creatures who seemed friendly or frightened of me when I first arrived become more aggressive. Or perhaps I am not as spry as I once was, and they only seem that way. For several years running, I barely rescue half the children.

One year, I can only find one child before the winter storms overwhelm the forest, and I return to the mayor in tears. He is very gruff, and understandably so; he says that if I fail again, they will turn me out of the village. Every year after, he reminds me that they are watching. I am ashamed.

I get married anyway. 

The archer is so lonely; I invite her into my home and we pool our warmth in my bedroom. Cooking for two instead of one saves resources; we find we have enough rice to share many meals with our friend the singer, who joins our little family. We often stay up late into the night talking; this draws the attention of my friend with the books. He and the archer don't always get along, but I hug them both and tell them how precious they are to me, and they manage to set aside their differences.

Nobody in the village asks us how we all fit in the bed, and I am glad for that. The girl who sells flowers warms to me again, although we never grow very close.

I set aside all thoughts of the Elixir that I will never taste again. My hair grows white, and Mab scratches harvest-lines at the edges of my eyes. My spouses are young and beautiful, and every year I venture out into the forest to rescue their cousins and nephews, and I tell them: don't hold back for me. We are all wed; we are one family; love each other.

They shake their heads. They will not be intimate with each other without me.

Finally, after fifteen years of rescuing children, I can do no more. The Elixir that preserved me for so long has worn away, and the berries I have eaten over the last several years have given me an immunity to it even if it were available. I lie on my bed, surrounded by my beloveds, and I talk to them one last time. I tell them I have been lucky to have them, and our time together has been a delight, but it is ending now.

They shake their heads. They don't want to believe in endings. They are young; they have many years ahead of them. I tell them to try to enjoy them all, even the dark and cold parts. 

I remind them they need not have children to be a family, but if they wish to, they should not let my limitations stop them. They will not meet my eyes, but my singer hugs my writer-love. They may adopt one of the lost children someday, perhaps. I have heard them talking about it, when they did not think I could hear.

My archer, usually so reserved, weeps at my bedside. "No time!" she cries. "We have had so little time together!" I trail my fingers down her face and smile. She is so beautiful. I cannot recall her name--I've had so few years to learn it--but I recall how she laughed when the cat crashed into of our clay pots, and how she likes to eat honey with a fork, and how she followed me to the very edge of the forest during a blizzard, and promised to have warm blankets for me when I returned. I savor her presence in my life when the names and words start to fall away.

She says, "I will be so lonely again! It will be like you were never even here!" She looks so desperate that I search my soul for something to say to her, some last gift sustain her, as she has sustained me for these years. I look up to the sky, to Cosma's realm, and out to the woods where Spriggan's blessings overflow, and to the rug where the cat sleeps, purring, and I find what I need to tell her.

"Come close," I say, because I can only whisper now. She leans over me, and the two men follow her--they all want to hear me. I look into their bleak eyes where hope is peeking around the edges, and I tell them my greatest secret.

"Love is never wasted," I tell them. "Even if it's only for a little while. Even if you lose everything you loved. Even if you have to be alone for a long while because of it. Remember our time together--remember the trees, and the shrines, and the butterflies; remember sliding on the ice; remember the fountain in the town and the spirits in the forest; remember the little patch that wants to hold a tree someday. Remember them even if they were only part of a story. And if you can't remember all that, remember that you loved, and it was beautiful. And perhaps we will meet again, when the giants grow tired of their waking life, and slumber again."

They promise me they will remember. I smile as I close my eyes for the last time.

I have lived a rich, full life: I fell in love. Someone was jealous of me. I got married. It was the best possible life.


End file.
